APEX, N.C. — Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan likes to talk about a “whispering caucus” of fellow Republicans who quietly tell him they, like him, plan to vote for Kamala Harris this week next.

John Robertson could well be a solid member.

He doesn’t like to talk about politics with his friends and neighbors to avoid arguments. He already voted for the Republicans. And he is absolutely done with Donald Trump.

Robertson was among 36,358 Wake County voters who supported former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in the North Carolina presidential primary. Eight months later, he supported the Democratic vice-president against the former putschist president.

“The Republican Party is not what it used to be. This is not my father’s Republican Party,” Robertson said as he stood in line for early voting Thursday at the John Brown Community Center. “It’s no longer Republican.”

Brittany Samuel, a 38-year-old nurse, was another Haley-Harris voter vying to vote.

“He’s a criminal,” she said of Trump, whom she voted for in 2016 but not in 2020. “And I just don’t think a criminal should be running our country.”

Samuel and Robertson were ready to talk about their decision to vote for Harris. Many others, said leaders of North Carolina’s Republicans for Harris, would just as soon keep their choice to themselves.

At a news conference earlier Thursday in downtown Raleigh, Duncan appeared with former Republican Reps. Joe Walsh and Susan Molinaro, as well as Trump’s former White House national security aide Olivia Troye, to urge Republicans who also did not want Trump to regain the presidency to join them. vote for Harris.

“We know it’s going to be close,” Duncan said. “We know it’s going to come down to just a handful of votes, and we know exactly where those few votes are going to come from. And this is definitely one of those areas.

Duncan added that given all the Republicans who approach him to say they agree with what he says about Trump but will only express that view at the ballot box , he is optimistic that Harris will win.

“I think the whispering caucus is going to come out in epic proportions on Tuesday,” he said.

A quarter of a million votes for Haley

As the last candidate against Trump in the GOP presidential primaries, Haley became the vessel of opposition to Trump within the Republican Party – even after it became clear that she had a nearly impossible path, following her defeat in the New Hampshire primary in January, then in his home state of South Carolina a month later.

By the end of the primaries in June, she had received 4.4 million votes, or 20% of the votes cast. Of those, 1.2 million were in the seven states that will likely decide November’s elections, making the voters who chose them a key focus of the “Republicans for Harris” effort.

North Carolinians cast 250,838 votes for Haley in the March 5 primary, just under a quarter of all votes cast on the Republican side that day. This was the second-highest anti-Trump primary turnout among the seven swing states, with only Michigan seeing higher turnout.

Republican for Harris officials estimate that if she can win more than three of Haley’s 250,000 voters, it would give Harris the margin she would need to win in the state.

In North Carolina on Wednesday, Harris asked one of Haley’s constituents to introduce her at a rally — a public affirmation of how important her campaign believes anti-Trump Republicans are to building a constituency. winning coalition.

Jennifer Bell said she voted for Trump in 2016 because she was a Republican and Republicans voted for their presidential candidate. She said she quickly regretted that choice.

“Are there any Haley voters for Harris?” » Bell asked from the stage in front of a crowd of 8,000. “Conservatives for Harris? Yes, we are all family now.

Bell, a 49-year-old engineer, later told HuffPost that she was appalled by what happened to the party she grew up in. “The Republicans were accustomed to the party of intellect, the party of business acumen. That’s all gone,” she said, adding that she makes it a point to wear her “Republicans for Harris-Walz” t-shirt every time she goes out to spread the word.

“If you don’t want to see Trump elected, you need to vote for Harris. … I hope there was a conservative Republican in the crowd who might be able to change my mind.”

The overwhelming majority of those who attended Harris’ rally at an outdoor amphitheater on the outskirts of Raleigh were longtime Democrats. They said they were happy their candidate was reaching out to the other party.

“I think it’s a fabulous idea,” said Jill Bliss, 70, a retired public school librarian.

Her husband, Bill Bliss, 72, a retired advertising executive, said he didn’t understand some Democrats’ anger at Harris, who welcomed support from former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, former Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney, both conservative Republicans.

“When the Democrats said, ‘No, you can’t pardon him, deport him,’ I don’t think that’s the right way to do it,” he said.

The “shy” Elector Harris

In 2016, the Trump campaign said it had determined the existence of “shy” Trump voters, those who would not tell friends, family or pollsters their intention to vote for him to avoid criticism. Eight years later, it’s Harris supporters who think — and hope — that there are timid Harris voters in pro-Trump areas, people who are tired of the former president but who would prefer to keep this point of view secret.

“I equate it to Trump’s stealth vote in 2016, which no one predicted,” said Robert Orr, a former North Carolina Supreme Court justice and co-chair of Republicans for Harris in the state. “I think in 2024 it will be a stealth vote for Harris.”

A Christian group supporting Harris actually created a announcement targeting a subcategory of this group, women whose pro-Trump husbands expect them to also vote MAGA. In the ad, narrated by actress Julia Roberts, two women look at each other in the polling station and, out of sight of their husbands, smile and vote for Harris.

Former first lady Michelle Obama, at a rally last week in Michigan, made the same point. “If you are a woman who lives in a household of men who don’t listen to you and don’t value your opinion, just remember that your vote is a private matter,” she said. “Whatever your partner’s political views are, you get to choose.”

It was a message repeated by Liz Cheney on Sunday in a interview with CBS. “Frankly, I think there will be a lot of men and women who will go into the voting booth and vote their conscience and vote for Vice President Harris,” she said. “They may never say anything publicly, but the results will speak for themselves.”

Of course, not all Haley voters will be convinced.

Shiva Gangu said he voted for Haley in March largely because he thought Trump’s various criminal cases — he was convicted by a jury in May of a felony and continues to face charges dozens of other criminal charges for his January 6 coup attempt – would either be his undoing.

“Trump was going through what he was going through,” Gangu, 48, said as the early voting line headed out the door.

“Now that he’s gotten through it,” he said, “well, I don’t want to say it, but you can see my tendencies.”